MOSCOW, June 14 (Xinhua) -- A senior Russian diplomat said on Thursday that 25 million U.S. dollars of frozen money owned by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in a Macau-based bank will be transferred to a Russian bank.

    The DPRK money in the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) "will be transferred to an appropriate account at one of the Russian banks in the Far East," the Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov as saying, who refused to name the bank.

    "There are several Russian banks where North Korea has accounts. I do not know whether these accounts are private or state owned," the diplomat said, noting the United States has given written promise to free the Russian bank from any possible sanction.

    "The guarantees are firm enough. That is why we can obviously be confident that such sanctions will not be imposed either by the current U.S. administration or the next," he said.

    The money is from dozens of accounts and the BDA has remitted the money according to the instruction of several dozens of clients from the DPRK, said a government press release from the Macau Information Bureau issued on Thursday.

    The DPRK, which failed to shut down its main nuclear reactor by an April 14 deadline as agreed in six-party talks in February, insisted that its 25 million U.S. dollars frozen at BDA must be returned before closing the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and starting new negotiations.

    The DPRK funds were frozen after the United States blacklisted the bank in September 2005 for allegedly helping Pyongyang launder money, an allegation denied by the bank.

    Pyongyang also denies the U.S. charges.